The guidelines are the result of a meeting in New York in July, at which more than 20 ICSC members acknowledged that “old notions of institutional authority” are giving way to other forms of credibility such as Twitter, Likes, and, Google rankings. The attendees agreed that the search engines play a central role and that the ICSC should engage in a discussion with them.

ICSC executive director Tim Duncan said:

The proliferation of low-quality search-based content is threatening to reduce the utility of the Internet for users, content creators, and advertisers alike. The industry needs to come to grips with this issue, and we are posting these guidelines to further the dialogue.